


The Present

by LiraelClayr007



Series: 31 Days of Ficmas - 2019!! [13]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Surprises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:21:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21798268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiraelClayr007/pseuds/LiraelClayr007
Summary: Rose is keeping secrets.Or at leastasecret. She’s been sneaky and secretive for weeks now, whispering with Jackie and then immediately stopping, trying to school her face into something blank and bland when he comes into the room. He trusts his Rose, but he’s got centuries of being the secret keeper on his side and it feels odd to be on the other side of it.***In which Rose gives the Doctor a gift.
Relationships: Metacrisis Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Series: 31 Days of Ficmas - 2019!! [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1559875
Comments: 13
Kudos: 51
Collections: 31 Days of Ficmas 2019





	The Present

Rose is keeping secrets.

Or at least _a_ secret. She’s been sneaky and secretive for weeks now, whispering with Jackie and then immediately stopping, trying to school her face into something blank and bland when he comes into the room. He trusts his Rose, but he’s got centuries of being the secret keeper on his side and it feels odd to be on the other side of it. He vaguely wonders if his human companions ever felt like this, frustrated and curious, but he pushes the thought aside for later. He doesn’t want to start missing them right now.

He walks into Pete and Jackie’s kitchen and he idly wishes heightened hearing had been part of the Time Lord/human combo he’s become. It’s so odd and seemingly random, which bits are Time Lord and which are human and which are almost something new. His brain is fully Time Lord, capable of multiple levels and fast thought and computation. He’s still overly sensitive to ginger in a way that still brings Jackie to tears whenever someone brings it up. (Honestly, who puts ginger ale in punch? He’ll never live that one down.) And his taste buds are mostly Time Lord as well; Jackie is always getting onto him about licking things, but he’s been doing it throughout his many lives and how else is he supposed to determine something’s chemical composition?

But his hearing is human, as is much of his body; he feels aches when a chase is over now, and he even came down with the flu not long after he’d settled into his new life here on Pete’s World. Rose had tucked him into bed, brought him juice and broth and read him Dickens and Tolkein and a few of Shakespeare’s sonnets. He never wants to have the flu again (how has humanity managed to thrive with something like the flu attacking such vulnerable bodies?) but he can still remember the feel of Rose’s lips on his flushed forehead, the gentle way she’d stroked his sweat-soaked hair back out of his eyes.

Rose looks up when he comes in; she tries to look boring and uninteresting, but she is incapable of such things. Jackie doesn’t even attempt to hide her “we know something you don’t know” face. 

“Mum and Pete invited us for dinner tomorrow,” Rose says, her voice even. But his eyesight is excellent--even better than it had been back when he was fully Time Lord--and he sees the twinkle in her eyes.

_It’s tomorrow, then_ , he thinks. “Alright,” he says. Then he lowers his voice, adds, “She’s not cooking, is she?”

“I’m right here, ya plum,” Jackie says. He sees her trying not to laugh.

“Pete’s cooking, actually,” Rose says.

The Doctor brightens. Pete is a pretty good cook for someone who spends most of his time running companies and being a dad. He’s got hidden talents.

Just then Pete breezes in. He kisses Jackie on her cheek and Rose on the top of her head and then says, “Doctor! Tony’s requesting your help in building his lego city. Says you know about how bridges work.”

As he’s on his way towards Tony’s playroom he sees Pete wink at the women.

“It’s awfully dark,” the Doctor says. “We have the right day, don’t we?” He spent centuries skipping back and forth through time, being in the right place at the wrong time is a constant concern for him.

Rose slips an arm around his waist. “They’re probably in the back. It’s a big house, after all.”

Right.

They push open the door, and even as his human ears strain to hear things they cannot hear his Time Lord eyes catch flickers of movement in the darkness. And then it’s too late to wonder, because the lights flick on and everyone is shouting “Surprise!”

And he _is_ surprised. Because the big sign hanging over the fireplace reads “Happy Birthday Doctor!” in big, TARDIS blue letters.

“My...my birthday? But...even I don’t know exactly what day I was born, it was so long ago…” He’s trying to grasp what’s going on here, but he’s so touched that he just keeps grinning like the idiot he knows he sometimes is. (Is it possible to be both an idiot and a genius? He thinks yes.)

Rose takes both his hands in hers, looking up at him. “But we _do_ know when _this body_ was born, and it was a year ago today.”

He thinks about it, and she’s right. His surprise regeneration, saving the multiverse, landing on the bay, watching Donna and his other self disappear in the TARDIS--all of that had happened one short year ago. Smiling at everyone around him--Pete, Jackie, Tony, and his Rose--he says, “So for my birthday, you’re giving me...a birthday?”

“Happy birthday!” yells Tony. Everyone laughs.

Rose bites her lip. “Do you like it?”

He leans down and kisses her, a featherlight brush of his lips against hers. “It’s perfect,” he breathes. “Best birthday present ever.”

**Author's Note:**

> 31 Days of Ficmas || Day 13 - Celebrate
> 
> (Looking back, I don't think I actually used the word "celebrate" at all. But the theme is certainly there!)


End file.
